Magnetic disk drives are conventionally designed to store large volumes of data on a plurality of disks mounted on a spindle assembly. Typically, each disk includes two disk surfaces capable of storing data. On each disk surface, user data is divided into groups of sectors and stored in concentric circular tracks located between an outside diameter and an inside diameter of the disk. Embedded servo information is recorded in servo sectors located in radially continuous narrow wedges along the disk surface.
In many disk drive applications, and especially in mobile applications, power conservation is critical. In order to reduce power consumption, many disk drives impose artificial limits on a maximum operating frequency of the disk drive microprocessor, since power consumption increases at higher frequencies. Moreover, many disk drives further decrease the operating frequency of the microprocessor during sleep modes and only increase the operating frequency when the disk drive is in an active mode.
Unfortunately, this strategy of frequency reduction may adversely affect a disk drive's performance. For example, when a host computer sends disk drive access commands that purport to measure a disk drive's I/O performance, the measured response time of the disk drive may be impacted due to the artificially limited operating frequency of the disk drive microprocessor.
There is therefore a need in the art for a method of efficiently improving the performance of disk drives by increasing the microprocessor operating frequency.